Students from A. MacArthur Barr Middle School in Nanuet are heading home from Boston right now, and they certainly deserve a very boring, uneventful ride home.

Yesterday morning, middle schoolers, chaperones and the driver kept their cool as a coach bus carrying them to an overnighter in Boston burst into flames. (See story, photos and video here and check out the photos, taken as the bus burned on the shoulder near Exit 2 of Interstate 684 in Armonk. Cutline information below.)

Everyone got off the bus safely before the flames really started, witnesses said. Items were lost, with some suitcases apparently damaged. Items can be replaced (they sell toothbrushes in Boston, too). Everyone kept their wits about them, a pretty remarkable feat.

The 40 or so seventh-graders stood along I-684 for several hours until the next bus came so they could continue their trip. But continue they did. The Boston trip is an annual tradition at the school.

In the age of text-messaging and picture phones, parents got an upclose look at what the kids were experiencing — video sent via phone showed the large bus engulfed in flames, burned down to its metal bones. Wonder how many kids were saying, “watch my mom freak out.”

They are due back at the school this evening. Wonder, in 30 years, if these kids will remember what they learned on the Boston trip, beyond how to evacuate a bus quickly, and why those fire drills are important, after all.

PHOTOS: At left, a contributed photo by Amy Cargain of Somers showing the bus on fire on the shoulder of Interstate 684 in Armonk. That bus was carrying 40 MacArthur Barr Middle School 7th-graders to Boston. They evacuated just before it burst into flames. At right, a photo by Journal News/LoHud staffer Christine PIzzuti shows the remnants of the burned bus.